LOVEGLOVEFACE
There, now that your attention has been grabbed, I'm going to repeat a story that I barely remember but my parents still bring up at every family reunion possible.

My cousin J is two years younger than me. He also happens to be two years older than my younger brother, so the three of us go 22, 20, 18 (at the moment). Because we were all roughly of the same age, unlike the rest of my siblings/cousins, we all used to hang out together. J used to come over for a week or so in the summer break when we were little kids, and we used to go to his place in London for a week a few weeks after his visit. All very civilised and very Enid Blyton, you may agree.

One summers break, when we're all fairly young, I think I was about ten at the time, we're all out playing in a playground in London, and as we're kids, we tend to mess around. Especially on the swings. Now, as this was 12 years ago or so, my memory is a little fuzzy, but I am reliably informed by parents and elder relatives, that I egged J on to try and take off from the swings "like Superman and see if you can fly, bet you can't". J, being a man, and more importantly, looking to win my respect, tries to do so before anyone can intervene. He gets a massive swing whilst standing on it and being pushed by me, and at the apex, launches himself into the air, one fist heroically pointed skyward, imaginary cape flying in the wind.

Unfortunately, gravity is a harsh, harsh mistress. He faceplants perfectly in the Superman pose onto concrete, having flung himself a fairly impressive distance with his swing/uncontrolled fall/whatever you want to call it. He groans once, and then hauls himself to his feet amidst a crowd of parental units, both mine and his. I get a swift bollocking whilst we're bundling him into the car to take him to the hospital, but its not really effective as I, being a manly man of ten years old, have burst into tears at seeing J's face with blood trickling everywhere, and everyone is more concerned with making sure J is alright rather than bollock me.

Miraculously, nothing major is broken, only his nose. J has massive gashes across his face, and has knocked out two of his teeth. They take a look at him, and instead of giving him stitches, opt to glue his face back together. So, the head nurse dons rubber gloves, not the skin-tight ones, and sets about gluing his face back together, chatting to him and us all the while in a lovely soft cockney accent, calling us all love constantly. Except for the last gash, which she cocks up.

"Oops, sorry love, hang on a tick..."

She worriedly mutters, and collectively the family lean forward to look at the damage done.

Yes, the nurse had just glued a glove on to J's face.

I can only guess that the glue set too quickly after she applied it to the fingertip/face, and then went to pull her hand away and the glove slipped off her hand. After some hasty consultation with another nurse, she wanders off to find a doctor/someone with some experience of just what the funting cuck to do, leaving my cousin, now cleaned up and looking almost as good as new, with a glove stuck to his jaw. Eventually someone comes and sorts it out, but even now, the poor bastard has a scar on his face from this, and a slight mistrust of nurses.

Length? Not that great, it was only a fingertip.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Mon 15 Mar 2010, 16:22, Reply)